"This is the Charity of God, That We Keep His Commandments"

Part Seven

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy. (1 John 5: 1-3)

The Sixth Commandment reads as follows:

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

The Ninth Commandment reads as follows:

Thou shalt not cover they neighbor's wife.

The subjects covered by the Sixth and Ninth Commandments require circumspection to discuss and review. That is, the virtue of modesty requires us to be very careful about discussing matters that could lead to sinful thoughts and actions. This is a lesson that it took me the better part of five decades to learn, having to unlearn the influences of the popular culture and of conciliarism's mania for discussing matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in direct terms. Even the three letter word associated with the subject matter of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments must be used sparingly and in a context where it is assured, as far as humanly possible, that the eyes of the innocent will not happen upon it, which is why the word is cited in this article only in the context of Pope Pius XI's encyclical letter on the Christian Education of Youth, Divini Illius Magistri.

As the subjects covered by the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are extensive, this installment in my series on the Ten Commandments will focus on the formation of children in purity. The next installment will cover the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony itself in all of its various aspects.

Chastity and Modesty Begin in the Home

Chastity and modesty begin in the home. That is, a Catholic home should foster such a profound love for God as He has revealed Himself exclusively through His true Church that the thought of committing any sin, including those against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, is considered to be repugnant. The best way to keep each of the Ten Commandments--and all of their precepts--is to teach children to love God and to try to save their souls by cooperating with the graces He won for us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Children who are taught to love God and to hate sin will thus have quite an advantage as they come to deal  in their adolescent years with the weaknesses of the flesh that will beset them even without any external provocation.

Parents, therefore, must foster an atmosphere of holiness in their own homes, which are the domestic cells of Holy Mother Church. Parents must be careful to dress modestly at all times (and, yes, this means no shorts for women or for men or girls or boys; this is not Jansenism, it is Catholicism; it applies even on seventy-two mile pilgrimages). This modesty of dress is not optional. Consider these telling words contained in segment of the book, Prophet of the People, written by Dorothy Gaudiose, that has been excerpted at the Our Lady of the Rosary Library website:

Women received especially rough treatment from Padre Pio because of current fashions. He had always been a merciless enemy of feminine vanity. "Vanity," he said, "is the son of pride, and is even more malignant than its mother. Have you ever seen a field of ripe corn? Some ears are tall; others are bent to the ground. Try taking the tallest, the proudest ones, and you will see that they are empty; but it you take the smallest, the humblest ones, they are laden with seeds. From this you can see that vanity is empty."

Padre Pio wouldn't tolerate low-necked dresses or short, tight skirts, and he forbade his spiritual daughters to wear transparent stockings. Each year his severity increased. He stubbornly dismissed them from his confessional, even before they set foot inside, if he judged them to be improperly dressed. On some mornings he drove away one after another, until he ended up hearing very few confessions.

His brothers observed these drastic purges with a certain uneasiness and decided to fasten a sign on the church door: "By Padre Pio's explicit wish, women must enter his confessional wearing skirts at least eight inches below the knees. It is forbidden to borrow longer dresses in church and to wear them for the confessional."

The last warning was not without effect. There was a furtive exchange of skirts, blouses, and raincoats, that took place at the last moment in the half-lit church to remedy any failings.

The women made their adjustments, but perhaps not exactly enough. Padre Pio continued to send some away before giving them a chance to confess. He would glower at them, and grumble, "Go and get dressed." And sometimes he added, "Clowns!" He spared no one... persons he saw for the first time, or his long-time spiritual daughters. Often the skirts were decidedly many inches below the knees, but not sufficiently long for his moral severity.

As the years began to weigh on Padre Pio, his daily hours in the confessional were limited to four, equally divided between men and women. In addition to being dressed properly, they had to know the Italian language, even though he could somehow understand people speaking another language. But he knew Italian, Latin, and very little French, consistently refusing to hear confessions except in Italian or Latin.

Sometimes when Padre Pio refused to absolve his penitents and closed the small confessional door in their faces, the people would reproach him asking why he acted this way. "Don't you know," he asked, "what pain it costs me to shut the door on anyone? The Lord has forced me to do so. I do not call anyone, nor do I refuse anyone either. There is Someone else Who calls and refuses them. I am His useless tool."

Even the men had rules to follow. They were not permitted to enter the church with three-quarter length sleeves. Boys as well as men had to wear long trousers at church, if they didn't want to be shown out of the church, that is. But women in short skirts were his prime targets. Padre Pio's citadel was perhaps the only place in the world where the fashions of the 1930s still ruled in the 1960s."

Parents must be careful to associate only with those family members and friends who will themselves give good example in this regard, both in terms of dress and speech, something I alluded to in "Freedom to Assemble with the Enemies of Christ" a few weeks ago. One bad word and/or one bad example could ruin the innocence of our children forever. In an era when there are so many assaults upon our senses concerning graphic incitements to sin (highway billboards, advertising on buses and subways, murals painted on the side of buildings, magazine displays near supermarket lanes featuring, shall we say, barely clad human beings, the "music" that assaults our senses in practically every establishment we enter to transact business), parents cannot be too careful in protecting their children.

Believe me, I can tell you what parental inattention to the necessity of choosing one's friends and acquaintances with care can do to a young soul. I had heard many stories in my teaching career. Consider just one.

A fellow told me a chilling story from his childhood, recounting how he had come upon one room  in a neighbor's home where a stash of Mr. Hefner's evil wares were stored. His parents were visiting the neighbors in the living room. There went the innocence of his eyes, providing him with horrible matter to confess. He struggled with a desire to "read" that filth for the next five years and then had occasional struggles with the virtue of chastity as an adult. Parents must choose the people with whom they are going to associate very, very carefully. The rot in the now octogenarian Hefner's wares forty-two years ago is now available with the flick of a switch on the television in a neighbor's home. Do you really want to take that chance? Really? Truly?

Thus, although it should go without saying by now, television and motion pictures are absolutely forbidden.

Too strict? Au contraire, my friends, au contraire. My late parents had some good instincts on the natural level, the residue of the Catholicism then in the world and the residue of the graces they received in the baptismal font. Sadly, though, they did not realize the harm of placing their two sons in front of the television to watch programs that featured displays of adults engaged in "personal displays of affection," shall we say. All of those images burnish themselves into the mind's eye. They will be recalled when some opportunity presents itself sooner or later to fall into sin. While it is true that human nature is weak and that one can be enticed to sin as a result of the spontaneity of a given moment without any past enticements, parents must remember that the sanctification and salvation of their own sins depends to a large extent on how well they protect their children from the snares of the world, the flesh and the devil and how well they help them to cooperate with the graces that flow to them through the hands of Our Lady to resist sin and to grow in holiness.

This is why is important to keep our children out of professional sports arenas. Most of you know about my own love affair with baseball. I walked out of Shea Stadium on July 16, 2002, because a certain product that raised the subject of human conjugal intimacy in a public manner in front of children was being advertised in public address announcements, in fliers, and on the large television screen in left center field (as well as on the rotating billboards all over the stadium). Hostesses at the season ticket-holder's restaurant, the Diamond Club, were in tears as they told of the ugly things that men were saying to them as a result of the product that was being advertised so publicly. Children were asking their parents about the nature of the product. A woman who worked in a ticket booth told me a few weeks later, when I went to cash in a ticket for a game that had been rained out, that she was terribly embarrassed by the whole promotion, which has now become a standard part of baseball advertising. How can a parent take his child into such an environment, where indecency of every description is displayed on the large television screens and where the horror of "rock" music bombards the souls of those in attendance? I told a group attending my "To be Catholic from the Womb to the Tomb" lecture program in Ventura, California, in February of 2002 that I knew I had a decision to make about whether I would be able to take our then unborn child to a baseball game solely because of the horrible music. The advertising of the product made famous by Robert Joseph Dole made that decision for me once and for all. (I know, it took me long enough. I made enough compromises with the culture when I was single. I know that. That's on my soul, among many, many other things.)

Thus, in addition to preventative measures designed to protect the innocence and purity of children in their formative years parents must take positive measures designed to increase in their children's immortal souls ardor for the Blessed Trinity, the Blessed Mother and all of the angels and the saints. We must, as I noted in my reflection on the Fourth Commandment, read to them about the lives of the saints. We don't need to read about fairy tales or fantasies. We need to inspire our children to model their lives after the real heroes, the saints. Stories of saints such as Saint Lucy and Saint Agnes and Saint Aloysius Gonzaga and Saint Dominic Savio and Saint Maria Goretti, among so many others, will inspire our children to become like these great heroes of the Catholic Faith, models of innocence and purity who were willing to die for the Faith rather than to compromise their innocence and purity in any way whatsoever.

Most importantly, obviously, we must consecrate our children to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart and enroll them in the Brown Scapular as soon as it is safe for them to wear it. They must learn the story of Saint Simon Stock and the story of Saint Catherine Laboure and the Miraculous Medal, which they must come to love to wear as the consecrated slaves of Mary Immaculate. Children who pray their Rosary daily as a pledge of their filial devotion to the Mother of God will be equipped to do battle with the wiles of the adversary and his many ways in this fallen, fractured world. As they get older they can be taught that Our Lord was scourged at the pillar most cruelly as a result of all of the sins against purity. His Sacred Flesh was torn apart by the bone or metal-tipped whips that landed on his back and were pulled across it, creating huge gouges that wounded Him severely as massive quantities of His Most Precious Blood were spilled.

These measures are enough, especially in the childhood years before adolescence, to ward off the influences of our culture and to equip children to pursue holiness and to hate all sins, including those against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. Children do not need explicit instruction about certain sins in order to avoid those sins. They need to know how to love God and to cooperate with His ineffable graces. It is really that simple. Do children need explicit, graphic instruction about various forms of theft in order to keep the Seventh Commandment? Why, then, do they need such explicit instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments?

Pope Pius XI noted this in Divini Illius Magistri, December 30, 1929:

Another very grave danger is that naturalism which nowadays invades the field of education in that most delicate matter of purity of morals. Far too common is the error of those who with dangerous assurance and under an ugly term propagate a so-called sex-education, falsely imagining they can forearm youths against the dangers of sensuality by means purely natural, such as a foolhardy initiation and precautionary instruction for all indiscriminately, even in public; and, worse still, by exposing them at an early age to the occasions, in order to accustom them, so it is argued, and as it were to harden them against such dangers.

Such persons grievously err in refusing to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature, and the law of which the Apostle speaks, fighting against the law of the mind; and also in ignoring the experience of facts, from which it is clear that, particularly in young people, evil practices are the effect not so much of ignorance of intellect as of weakness of a will exposed to dangerous occasions, and unsupported by the means of grace.

In this extremely delicate matter, if, all things considered, some private instruction is found necessary and opportune, from those who hold from God the commission to teach and who have the grace of state, every precaution must be taken. Such precautions are well known in traditional Christian education, and are adequately described by Antoniano cited above, when he says:

"Such is our misery and inclination to sin, that often in the very things considered to be remedies against sin, we find occasions for and inducements to sin itself. Hence it is of the highest importance that a good father, while discussing with his son a matter so delicate, should be well on his guard and not descend to details, nor refer to the various ways in which this infernal hydra destroys with its poison so large a portion of the world; otherwise it may happen that instead of extinguishing this fire, he unwittingly stirs or kindles it in the simple and tender heart of the child. Speaking generally, during the period of childhood it suffices to employ those remedies which produce the double effect of opening the door to the virtue of purity and closing the door upon vice."

Pope Pius XI continued in Divini Illius Magistri to condemn "co-education," which is one of the reasons that Christ the King College would have been a single gender institution had it been enable to establish itself as a physical entity as we had been expecting. Again, to Pope Pius XI:

False also and harmful to Christian education is the so-called method of "coeducation." This too, by many of its supporters, is founded upon naturalism and the denial of original sin; but by all, upon a deplorable confusion of ideas that mistakes a leveling promiscuity and equality, for the legitimate association of the sexes. The Creator has ordained and disposed perfect union of the sexes only in matrimony, and, with varying degrees of contact, in the family and in society. Besides there is not in nature itself, which fashions the two quite different in organism, in temperament, in abilities, anything to suggest that there can be or ought to be promiscuity, and much less equality, in the training of the two sexes. These, in keeping with the wonderful designs of the Creator, are destined to complement each other in the family and in society, precisely because of their differences, which therefore ought to be maintained and encouraged during their years of formation, with the necessary distinction and corresponding separation, according to age and circumstances. These principles, with due regard to time and place, must, in accordance with Christian prudence, be applied to all schools, particularly in the most delicate and decisive period of formation, that, namely, of adolescence; and in gymnastic exercises and deportment, special care must be had of Christian modesty in young women and girls, which is so gravely impaired by any kind of exhibition in public.

Recalling the terrible words of the Divine Master: "Woe to the world because of scandals!" We most earnestly appeal to your solicitude and your watchfulness, Venerable Brethren, against these pernicious errors, which, to the immense harm of youth, are spreading far and wide among Christian peoples.

The virtue of chastity requires us to be ever vigilant. We live at a time when government itself promotes sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. Powerful and well-founded organizations exist to undermine the innocence and purity of the young, attempting to convince them it is neither possible nor desirable to persevere in the virtue of chastity. Far from the double-entendres, which were bad enough, that were in such supposedly innocuous fare as Laurel and Hardy motion pictures in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, Hollywood has been producing sophisticated pieces of propaganda in support of all manner of sins, both natural and perverse, against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. It must be reiterated, therefore, that motion pictures are forbidden. Apart from the rare exception, such as The Passion of the Christ, why should we support with our own financial resources enemies of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen?

Choosing a State-in-Life

The years of adolescence require good parental guidance and good, solid Catholic guidance from a traditional Catholic priest. Guidance on matters of purity in these years are given at home and in the confessional. Any explicit instructions in print are to be avoided. After all, generations of Catholics succeeded in passing down the Faith orally, instructing their children in the ways of virtue while reminding them that the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer awaits them in the Sacrament of Penance should they give way to temptation in one form or another, whether in thought or word or deed. Saints Mary Magdalene and Saint Augustine are just two saints whose own sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments became blotted out by their spirit of repentance and love for the Crucified and Risen Saviour, Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ. No one must ever despair of salvation if he has fallen prey to the wiles of the devil. No one must ever give up trying to scale the heights of sanctity if he has struggled with sins against purity. No one must ever stop doing penance for his own sins against purity, mindful that, indeed, more souls are going to Hell for the sins of the flesh than for any other reason. To sin and repent is to imitate the Prodigal Son. To keep on sinning without repentance is to imitate the Dives, the rich man, in the parable of Lazarus the beggar.

Leaving aside details that are left to the privacy of the home and the confessional, it should be noted that as our children be focusing more and more on choosing a state-in-life as they grow into adolescence. Parents must do everything possible to foster religious vocations in the bosom of their homes. The priesthood and the consecrated religious life have their own demands with respect to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. These will be covered in the next installment in this series. Suffice it to say for present purposes that the total self-giving required of priests and consecrated religious, people who must deny their biological parenthood in order to be the spiritual parents of those are begotten of the fruits of their lives of total services, is the highest calling, higher than marriage itself, taking nothing about from the sublime dignity of the estate raised to a sacrament by Our Lord at the wedding Feast in Cana.

Those of our children who believe that they are called to the married state must be taught that the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is not about romantic sentimentality. The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is a participation in the very creative power of God Himself, Who brought Adam into existence out of nothing--and Eve from his side--to know, to love, and to serve Him. The first end of Holy Matrimony, therefore, is the procreation and education of children, as many or as few as God sees fit to send. An adolescent or a young adult who is contemplating the married state must be taught to choose a spouse who will first of all be his or her helpmate to get home to God in Heaven as a member of the Catholic Church until the point of one's dying breath. The first and foremost consideration in Holy Matrimony is helping one's spouse get home to Heaven.

The second consideration in choosing a spouse flows from the first: who will be the best father or mother to help the children God sends them to get them home to Heaven? Beauty and good looks fade. So does romantic attraction in many instances. What lasts is our love for God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church. We must choose a spouse who loves God first and foremost. Such a person will be able to train children be canonizable saints. While it is true that people can convert or grow as the years progress, the Church has preferred that young men and women "choose well" when it comes to selecting a spouse. A valid, ratified and completed bond of Holy Matrimony is ended only by the death of one of the spouses. Choosing well in light of eternity, therefore, is essential. No person should be considered as a spouse who is averse to assisting at the Mass of the ages on a daily basis and who is not praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary every day. To stress the primacy of the supernatural ends of Holy Matrimony is not to overlook or to denigrate the importance of natural compatibility. No, to discuss the importance of "choosing well" supernaturally presupposes a natural compatibility and mutual attraction upon which to build a solid foundation for the pursuit of Heaven.

The world in which we live assumes as a matter-of-course that children will start to "date" when they are in the high school years, if not before. This is not Catholic at all. The Church teaches us that the only reason for "dating" is to find a spouse. I didn't know this when I was in high school, not that it really mattered. (Thanks be to Our Lord and His Most Blessed Mother, the three girls I asked out in high school weren't at all interested in dating me. I kind of stood out for my criticism of "rock" music and hallucinogenic drugs. God was saving me from myself and telling me to wait until I wasn't so blinded by my lack of proper training in the Sixth and Ninth Commandments so that I could come to understand more fully the purposes of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.) Like so many others, I just thought that "dating" was something was done to while one's time away on weekends. No, the only reason to "date" is to find a spouse.

Socializing in the adolescent years among groups of young Catholics is permitted as long as it is chaperoned. A man is not free to consider courting, which is a better term to use in Catholic tradition than "dating," until he is able to support a wife and children. Some might ask how I got around that requirement. Well, I did have an annual grant from a private foundation when I proposed to Sharon five years ago. I had no way of knowing that it would be taken way just a month after Lucy was born in 2002. I have apologized to her many times for the situation she finds herself in as my wife, living an unstable and uncertain life in financial terms. She is most understanding, recognizing that is what God knew from all eternity would happen in our lives. Conceding that men can lose their jobs or other means of financial support at any point in married life, it is nevertheless part of Catholic tradition that no man can consider marrying unless he can support a wife and children.

What must  be avoided during courtship--and at all times in the lives of married persons and in the lives priests and consecrated religious--is the appearance of scandal. Again, how little I knew about this from my own lack of training in my thoroughly secular household as I was growing up. That is, a man and a woman who are not married to each other are not permitted to be behind closed doors together. That in and of itself is scandal to others, regardless of any other considerations. The weakness of human nature is what it is. Such a situation is a scandal to others and it is the near occasion of sin for the persons involved. While a couple during courtship might go out to dinner or some acceptable form of entertainment, entering each other's abodes, if they live on their own apart from their parents (which is an entirely different issue that will be dealt with in the next installment), is simply not permitted. It is better to learn this lesson later in life than not at all. It is best to learn it in the home when one is of age as an adolescent and these questions come up for discussion.

Couples who are courting must assist at daily Mass as frequently as possible. They must pray the Rosary together every day in preparation for when they honor Our Lady daily in their own homes as a married couple, if God is calling the two of them to be married to each other. They should make pilgrimages with their parents to various shrines in honor of Our Lady. Everything about their courtship should be directed to God through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Another important factor in courtship is canonical freedom. A former professor of mine at Saint John's University thirty-five years ago, who is still teaching there as far as I can tell, was sought out frequently by students for personal advice. He was-and probably remains--a very good professor, one of the best I had ever had as a student. He is a serious Catholic. One of the first questions he was known to ask students when they came to him with personal questions about courtship was, "Is she (or he) canonically free to marry you?"  No one is free to court if he has been married and divorced and lacks a decree of nullity. Leaving aside the entire issue of the abuse of annulment process, which will be covered in the next installment, no thought can be given to embarking upon courtship yourself or doing so with another who is not canonically free. No one has the "right" to marry another person. No one has the canonical right to marry anyone who is presumed to be bound sacramentally to another person until that other person dies. There are no ifs, ands or buts about this matter whatsoever, as will be discussed in the next installment. And any parent who looks the other way at a child of his who is putting his soul in jeopardy by seeking to marry someone who is not canonically free becomes an accessory to his child's sins.

Yet another factor in the choice of a spouse in the context of the wreckage of the Church in her human elements today is the level of his or her commitment to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the fullness of the Catholic Faith that is best expressed and protected therein. There can be "mixed" marriages even in traditional Catholic circles. Couples who are courting must take care to sort out any differences that exist between them in this regard, for said differences will have deadly consequences for the upbringing of the children. There is no better way for children to quit the practice of the Faith altogether than for there to any sort of "mixed" marriage, including those involving Catholics and non-Catholics. While recognizing that the conversion of non-Catholic spouses is possible--and that many have in fact occurred, the Church has, traditionally, warned against any form of mixed marriages. This is even more the case today with the situation within the bosom of the Church herself in her human elements. Care must be taken.

The Church has also encouraged her children who believe that they are called to the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony to do so in their younger years. This was more possible in days when a nation's economy was agrarian-based and people could live to a large extent off of what they grew and raised on their own farms. Still and all, knowing the physical demands of child-rearing and God's injunction to be fruitful and multiply, a subject to be discussed in the next installment, the Church has encouraged her children to marry at a younger age than an older age. Although death can occur at any time, even with the young, a younger parent is less likely to die in his children's younger years than an older parent. As noted above, marriage cannot be contemplated until one has the means to support a family. As a corollary, however, marriage must not be postponed until one believes he has accumulated "enough" money for a family and for material goodies.

The period of engagement is one of preparation for entering into the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. It is at that time that all emotional attachments to any woman (for a man) and a man (for a woman) are excluded. The prospective spouse must be the only person of the opposite gender who is his or her confidante and means of spiritual and emotional support. This is a period of preparation for marriage itself. And while the couples are forbidden to enjoy the principal benefits of marriage until after they have given the sacrament to each other in the presence of a priest, they are called to conduct themselves with others as befits the dignity and decorum of the married state. Engaged couples are not free to "flirt" or to "have fun" with an member of the opposite gender than their betrothed.

That having been admitted, however, it must also be noted that marriage is a free gift. No one can or must be forced to "go through" with a marriage simply because they have become engaged. Oh, no. An engaged person has the right to change his or her mind right up to the point of the Nuptial Mass itself. The love that is necessary for a valid sacramental marriage can never be coerced. It is not earned or owed. It is far, far better for a person is unsure of his mind to postpone a marriage, no matter how much money or inconvenience this costs, than to enter into a marriage with reservations or doubts. No one should have any shame about breaking an engagement. Yes, it is painful to both parties, especially if the decision was unilateral. Better that temporary pain than a bad marriage. One can pray for one's former fiancee (or fiance). Better that than a bad marriage. Any hard feelings in this life, which should be offered up immediately to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slaves, will be reconciled at the General Judgment of the Living and Dead on the Last Day if everyone involved dies in a state of sanctifying grace.

Once a couple enters into a valid sacramental marriage they must live up to the precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandment, living chaste married lives as they bring forth children generously to be brought to the baptismal font--and from there back to God as members of His Catholic Church. The application of the precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments to married couples will be discussed at length in the next installment, which will be posted on Holy Saturday. Only a Good Friday reflection will be posted on the day on which our salvation was wrought for us by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross.

A reflection on Holy Thursday is being posted at the same time as this article.

A blessed Holy Thursday to you all.

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy. (1 John 5: 1-3)

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damien, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.